Life in Hollywood, below-the-line

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Sunday, February 24, 2013

Oscar Time

Yes, it's Oscar time again -- which is why half a dozen helicopters will soon take their assigned stations hovering over the intersection of Highland and Hollywood Boulevard. There they will remain for the rest of this day, filling the air with a clattering mechanical din as the media fulfills its cultural mandate to saturation-cover any and every celebrity dog-and-pony show -- and Oscar is the ultimate celebrity showcase. None of this would bother me if I lived in Simi Valley, Santa Monica, or Beverly Hills, but since I reside in Tinsel Town -- ground zero for Oscar madness -- this is one day of the year I can count on not being able to hear myself think.

In other words, it's a good day to get the hell out of Dodge, but since I'm lucky enough to be working tomorrow, that's not gonna happen. Guess I'll just have to fire up the stereo with some good rockin' blues to drown out the cacophony of my industry's annual orgy of self-congratulation.

The arrival of Oscar also means Hollywood Boulevard has been closed to vehicular traffic all weekend, but that's okay. Unless you're a tourist, there's really earthly reason to drive down this boulevard of broken dreams, which -- as Hollywood's version of Disneyland, absent the oppressively smothering security of the "happiest place on earth" -- is strictly for out-of-towners.*

While discussing Oscar in this space over the years, I've referred to the annual pageant as "a bloated exercise in onanistic narcissism" -- or was that "narcissistic onanism"? -- I really don't recall, but you get the point. My first Oscar post detailed an oblique brush with the little golden man way back when -- and if you're interested, a click of the cursor will take you back in time -- but better yet, read this, which was brought to my attention by good friend, skilled gaffer, and the ever-observant Dr. Kagen. It's a rude, politically incorrect (in all the right ways), and to my mind, highly entertaining take on tonight's festivities.

Who will win what? Having seen none of the entrants, I don't know and really don't care -- but if you do, I hope you enjoy the interminable broadcast. Me, I'll pick up my trusty Mexican Strat, crank up the amp, and proceed to piss off my neighbors as I try (and fail) to match licks with BB, Albert, and Freddie King, among others.

Different strokes for different folks.

* And if Disneyland is where I have to go to be "happy," just shoot me now. Please...

4 comments:

I didn't watch the broadcast, but heard replays of the truncated speech from the stage and the protests outside. I have a great deal of sympathy for VFX workers and artists, who are the latest victims of the "race to the bottom," a zero-sum subsidy game that pits state against state and county against country. It sucks.

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About Me

Born and raised in a rural pocket of the San Francisco Bay Area, I graduated from UC Santa Cruz clutching a degree in Aesthetic Studies. Armed with this paper sword, boundless ignorance, and a vision of Hollywood heavily influenced by the movie “Shampoo” (and seriously, what guy didn’t want to be Warren Beatty back then?), I proceeded to march on Hollywood in the spirit of a young man seeking adventure, a living -- and if Lady Luck deigned to smile upon me, perhaps a small fortune. Adventure, I found. A living, I made, but although Lady Luck has thus far kept me safe from harm on the road-raging freeways and bullet-riddled streets of Los Angeles, that elusive fortune remains but a shiny mirage on the road ahead.
I'm now playing out the string on a thirty year career in set lighting, trying to hang on until the bitter end.